


Casual Contact

by quartetship



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuddles, Inspired by Art, Inspired by Fanart, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:52:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartetship/pseuds/quartetship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started off casually enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Casual Contact

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hachidorikun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hachidorikun/gifts).



> So like an hour ago, Hachi posted [this gorgeous artwork](https://twitter.com/kurageclear/status/748318322672996352), and I couldn't resist writing for it. :')
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy some soft Klance cuddles!
> 
> \--

\--

It started off casually enough.

Lance was a people person. Even as a child, he'd always needed people near him, people talking to him, looking at him, just _being there._ Loneliness was more frightening to him than anything he feared facing when he had signed up to train as a pilot.

So when life had handed him lion-shaped lemons and landed him in the depths of space, the worst part of it all was the long stretches of silence at the end of every day. From the time he awoke until his head hit the pillow, he was surrounded by his teammates, the princess, Coran, aliens of every shape and size - more than enough people to keep him from getting lonely. Sometimes, he wished for space, in those busy hours, for peace and quiet and distance from everyone around him.

But then the evening came.

At night, he couldn't help thinking of home. When he tried to sleep, he remembered the names and the faces of the people he had left behind, remembered everything he didn't have, there on Arus. When the night grew quiet, his mind was anything but, never silent as it reminded him again and again that he would likely never rejoin them.

There was too much to do, as a defender of the universe. The time for family and friends was behind him.

So the first night that insomnia sent him wandering the bunk halls, no one was really surprised. Except perhaps Keith, when he knocked on his door.

They stood at the door and argued long enough to rouse the others. Pidge peeked out from the bunk around the corner, and Shiro came to ask if everything was alright. It was Hunk, shouting from behind a closed door - loud enough to wake people in other galaxies - that finally sent them both inside. Keith didn't bother with pleasantries; if Lance wanted company, he would have the quiet kind, or find somewhere else to spend his night.

Lance took what he could get, slept on Keith’s floor, and said nothing about that night for days, after.

All it took to break his silence was another mission. Just one more rough day, one more long journey, and he found himself heading to Keith’s room before he'd even tried to sleep in his own. This time, Keith only rolled his eyes, before stepping out of the way and letting Lance inside, without an offer of confrontation. Lance kept his mouth shut, hands to himself, and eyes off of whatever Keith was doing, in his bed. With everyone else wrapped up in their own hobbies and habits at night - most of them much healthier than staying up, half the night - Keith was really Lance’s only option for companionship, and he wasn't about to risk losing it.

He didn't explain it. Past saying that he needed _not to be alone,_ he didn't offer a reason for seeking out Keith’s company, and Keith didn't press him. He probably didn't care, Lance thought, but that was just as well. Quiet but comfortable with the sound of another human being stirring beside him, Lance slept on the floor again, grateful despite muted embarrassment.

It took a few weeks for Keith to stop sighing in frustration when he opened his door to find Lance standing behind it, and several more before he finally allowed him to sleep somewhere other than on the floor. If the circumstances were anything other than what they were, Lance might have teased Keith, for inviting him into his bed. As it was, he was just grateful to have a mattress beneath his aching back, even if he did have to sleep on the edge of it to keep from brushing up against Keith, even accidentally.

That too, changed with time.

A few months into their routine, Keith caught Lance by surprise, draping an arm sleepily across his shoulders one evening. Those shoulders had been shaking, quivering as Lance quietly cried, desperately trying not to be heard. It had been a long day, a hard-won battle, and every fiber of his being ached to go home, to take a break, to _stop being a paladin._ That wasn't an option, and both of them knew it; somehow, Keith seemed to sense that that was what was troubling him. Or at least, he knew that something was.

He lay beside Lance, steady in his stillness, an arm laid across him, as if it were the most casual thing he could have done. Perhaps it was. They'd spent months by then, sharing a bed whenever times were hard, and never once had Keith voiced any real opposition. Lance hadn't stopped to think about it, but in that time, he had grown attached to sleeping beside his teammate, his presence and warmth a sense of comfort in a world that was too often strikingly devoid of it.

Keith was many things, most of them annoying and irritating to Lance. But he was quiet, he was still, and he was there, at the end of every difficult day. When the universe was hard and sharp and painful, even to think about, Keith was warm and soft, and entirely human. He was the opposite of the unbearable silence that cut into Lance when he was alone. He was something close to home, in a world that was light years away from Lance’s.

From that night on, when Lance needed the comfort of human touch, Keith did not hesitate to offer his, if only in private. When he quietly wiped Lance’s tears one evening, replacing them on his cheeks with soft, chaste kisses, Lance only stared at him in return, startled for a moment, before reaching up to pull him back down, to press their lips together, silent as he shuddered in Keith’s arms. They didn't talk about what it meant; it evolved so naturally that there was no need for them to. Whatever they had, it was uniquely theirs, and even as everyone around them figured it out, it was never discussed, never dragged out into the daylight.

It was okay, with _everyone,_ with Keith, and with _Lance._ It was something that _both_ of them needed, armor against the cold, quiet nights. And even unfathomably far from everything he had ever known, Lance was no longer alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [twitter](twitter.com/_quartetship_)!  
> Find me on [tumblr](quartetship.tumblr.com)!


End file.
